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Monday, April 23, 2012

Mindful Monday: Expectations

Mindful Monday: On Monday's I'm going to share what's been on my mind. I by no means have any of this figured out, I'm just thinking out loud here. Oh and just a fair warning, I jump around a lot in my mind. It may seem random, but that's just how my mind works.

Our would is full of expectations. Expectations you have for yourself. Expectations others have about you. Expectations you think others have about you (this difference can be huge). Expectations from society. The list goes on. Our expectations for ourselves and perceived expectations from others play a large role in our actions and thinking. How much of our time and energy do we spend trying to please others and meet their (supposed and sometimes quite unrealistic) expectations? What would happen if we didn't meet these expectations?

As I thought about starting this blog I realized I expected it to be perfect. And that everyone else must also expect perfection. (notice faulty thinking here) That brought me to a stopping point and I hadn't even started. Perfection is something I have always expected of myself (another topic I'll get into later). But guess what, humans aren't perfect. That's just life. I'm not going to have everything perfectly figured out right now (or ever). Life is a process, a learning process. If we wait to have the perfect answer before jumping in we miss too much in the meantime.

Do I know exactly where I want to go with this blog? No. Do I have it perfectly planned out? No. Am I going to start it anyway? Yes. Are there going to be mistakes? Yes. I'm sure there will be lots of mistakes. I will probably cringe when I look back at these first posts. But making mistakes helps me learn, and I have so much left to learn.

Besides mistakes what else can you expect on this blog? Well, you can probably expect a lot of change at first. I'm not good with change. I like to have everything figured out and set in stone, before I start. In the past this has often meant I don't start at all because I can't reach the perfect decision and don't want to end up just changing it later. But I'm realizing I can't figure out what exactly I do want until I try it out. If I don't like it, I can change it.

So I'm going to try out a few things here. For example, what style of writing do I want to come through on this blog? I know I need to have a consistent voice, but what type of voice fits best? Do I make it professional? Conversational? How do I get my weird sense of humor across? I tend to be pretty sarcastic in real life, so how does that translate when you can't hear my tone of voice? For starters I reflected on all the blogs I enjoy reading. Most of them are down-to-earth and have a real life, conversational feel. On days where I'm sharing my thoughts it will be just that, my thoughts. My thoughts don't come in perfectly formulated sentences. They just are. No one is grading this on cohesion and sentence flow. So let's just be real, okay? I'm terrible at using commas correctly and hyphens and semicolons have never been my forte either. Don't even get me started on spelling. (or how I always overuse parentheses). For now, I'm just going to go with it. We'll see what happens later. But seriously, if you do have helpful grammar tips or see glaring mistakes please point them out. Because I like to learn from those mistakes, remember?

What about recipes? I haven't decided yet. Typically a "company" will have a style guide to go by when writing recipes. If I'm writing recipes for someone else, I go by their style guide. For example, you can use tsp. or teaspoon, c. or cup. Directions can be lumped together or separated with numbers. There is no right or wrong answer, just be consistent. I'm still in the process of creating my style guide and it will take some time to decide on the format I like best.

Yikes, I just realized how long this is and how much I've been rambling. Did I mention I tend to be overly wordy? Like I said, that's how my mind works. I'll stop for now and hopefully have shorter posts in the future, but no promises on that. Come back tomorrow for a recipe.

Food for thought: "Decide. Now. Make a decision. It doesn't have to be the perfect answer, but an answer is better than a lingering question. People spend decades in limbo because they can't make a decision. Decide to be different. Make a decision and follow it through." Source

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About Me

I'm just another 20-something trying to figure out what to do with my life. I've always loved trying out new recipes and playing in the kitchen. You should also know I'm usually wearing something blue. The recipes and ideas on this blog may or may not be tried and true, but they have been tried in blue.